ACC All Access: Guard Robert Brown decides to transfer away from Virginia Tech

By Norm Wood

As if the task of rebuilding a team that finished 13-19 this season isn't daunting enough for Virginia Tech men's basketball coach James Johnson, he'll now have to do it without starting guard Robert Brown.

Tech announced Wednesday that Brown has decided to transfer. He started 25 games this past season, which was his sophomore season of eligibility, and averaged 8.3 points per game while shooting just 33.1 percent from the floor.

"Robert Brown was a great contributor to this team on and off the court," said Johnson in a statement released by Tech's athletic department. We are sad to see him go, but support his decision to look for other opportunities. We wish him the best of luck and will always be behind him."

Speculation started to grow last weekend that a Tech player or players were looking to transfer. Messages left for Johnson at his office Tuesday and Wednesday, as well as a text message to Johnson on Tuesday, weren't returned.

Brown, a 6-foot-5 native of Clermont, Fla., played his senior year of high school at Hargave Military Academy in Chatham. He averaged 6.8 points per game last season off the bench as a freshman at Tech.

He was expected this season to provide a solid complementary offensive option along with Jarell Eddie to support All-ACC guard Erick Green. Instead, Brown could never pull himself out of a slump that set in shortly after Tech's 7-0 start.

In Tech's first eight games, he averaged 14.4 points per game while shooting 45.2 percent (42 of 93) from the floor. He made 40.7 percent (11 of 27) of his shots from 3-point range in November.

After those eight games, he scored in double figures in just eight of the last 23 games he played and made only 27.3 percent (53 of 194) of his shots from the floor, including 29 percent (25 of 86) from beyond the 3-point line. During one particularly futile stretch in December and January, he missed 28 of 29 attempts from 3-point range.

With Brown gone and Green's eligibility elapsed, Tech will have Adam Smith, who sat out this season after transferring from UNC-Wilmington, Marquis Rankin and incoming freshmen Donte Clark, Ben Emelogu and Malik Muller as scholarship guards on the roster. Eddie, who also struggled to remain consistent this season, has played the wing for Tech for much of his career.